Looking to Critical Criminology to Centre Gender and Violence Against Women in State Crime Studies
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | VICTORIA E. COLLINS |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12415 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12415
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 370–387
Looking to Critical Criminology to
Centre Gender and Violence Against
Women in State Crime Studies
VICTORIA E. COLLINS
Professor, School of Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, USA
Abstract: The state is over-represented as a perpetrator of violence against women, yet it
receives little attention in the state crime/crimes of the powerful literature. In line with the
goal of this special issue, the focus here will be to introduce state-perpetrated gender-based
violence and demonstrate the utility of including gender as an analytic concept for under-
standing the pervasive and prolonged harms perpetrated by states that disproportionately
harm women and girls. Furthermore,I argue for a more integrative approach to the study
of state crime/crimes of the powerful, to better include other innovative critical crimino-
logical approaches such as queer perspectives, rural criminology, and more in-depth race
analysis to mention but a few.
Keywords: crimes of the powerful; gender; state crime; state-perpetrated vio-
lence against women
As many countries implement measures to address the spread of the coron-
avirus, including mandated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the global
problem of violence against women has been exacerbated, so much so it has
been termed a Shadow Pandemic (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2020). Emerging data
indicate that this increase is particularly acute when it comes to intimate
partner and domestic violence, with reports to helplines registering an in-
crease in calls reflecting an uptick in demand for services (Almeron 2020;
Mohan 2020). While many states have recognised the problem and allo-
cated resources to help address the issue, this does not negate the reality
that violence against women remains one of the worst documented human
rights violations with a global cost of approximately 1.5 trillion USD. As
noted by the United Nations, in the twelve months prior to the pandemic
243 million women and girls reported experiencing physical or sexual vio-
lence at the hands of an intimate partner (Mlambo-Ngcuka 2020). Further-
more, in varying studies examining different geographical regions, lifetime
harassment prevalence rates for women and girls range from 30% to 81%
(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016; European Union Agency for Fun-
damental Rights 2014; Stop Street Harassment 2018), women and girls
370
C
2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 370–387
account for 72% of all trafficking victims, girls account for three in every
four cases of child trafficking (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
2018), and in 2019 alone at least 15 million girls aged between 15 and 19
years reported having experienced rape in their lifetime (United Nations
Children Fund 2017). The problem is so pervasive that UN Women(2014)
have likened violence against women to a global pandemic in its own right.
Despite the recognition from the United Nations, women’s rights as hu-
man rights can only be achieved when member states are fully committed
to looking inward and recognising their own role in the perpetration of
violence against women (Collins 2016). This is especially important as the
state is over-represented as a perpetrator of violence against women. From
the damaging deregulation of protections to women in the United States
under the Trumpadministration (Rothe and Collins 2020), to the decrimi-
nalisation of domestic violence in Russia (Isajanyan 2017), to the pervasive
and enduring use of sexual violence by state militaries during both conflict
and peacetime (Buss 2009; Hynes 2004; Mullins 2009), states, their gov-
ernments, actors, and agents, have been, and continue to be, engaged in
both direct and indirect forms of violence against women.
In line with the goal of this special issue, the purpose here is to draw
attention to the positioning of state crime studies within the larger critical
criminology agenda, before drawing attention to the lack of attention paid
to the issue of gender. I then argue for a more comprehensive and inclu-
sive approach to state crime and crimes of the powerful studies that centres
gender analyses and violence against women. The focus here will be to in-
troduce state-perpetrated gender-based violence, and by drawing on case
examples demonstrate the utility of including gender as an analytic con-
cept for understanding the pervasive and prolonged harms perpetrated
by states that disproportionately harm women and girls. After all, whether
directly perpetrated by the state and/or its actors, or indirectly committed
within a state structure that is supposed to protect the victims from these
types of harm, the state is complicit and should be held accountable. In
addition, while acknowledging that the focus of this article is confined to
harms committed against women and girls reflecting the problematic het-
eronormative gender binary,I also argue for the further expansion of state
crime/crimes of the powerful studies to better include other innovative crit-
ical criminological approaches such as queer perspectives, rural criminol-
ogy, critical race theories and intersectionalities, and southern criminolog-
ical perspectives, to mention but a few.
Critical Criminology, State Crime and State-perpetrated Gender-based
Violen ce
Emerging in the 1970s, critical criminology drew attention to the inadequa-
cies of traditional criminological theorising and practice, highlighting the
social harms and inequalities that result from structures of power, includ-
ing criminal justice apparatus and capitalist systems of production (Taylor,
Walton and Young 2012). While critical criminology is an umbrella term
for a diversity of subfields, theories, and perspectives that span different
371
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2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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